


nine days

by cirque



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Hymn to Demeter - Homer
Genre: (but not explicit), Complicated Relationships, Dubious Consent, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24204922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cirque/pseuds/cirque
Summary: “No one will come.” His lips curled as he spat it. “No one ever comes.” And he left her there, sobbing into the stone.
Relationships: Hades/Persephone, Hades/Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 71
Collections: Once Upon a Fic 2020





	nine days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [resnullius_bells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/resnullius_bells/gifts).



> Please please take note of the warnings. There is nothing explicit, but the warnings are there for a reason.
> 
> //with thanks to my beta-reader//

She waits for each and other,

She waits for all men born;

Forgets the earth her mother,

The life of fruits and corn;

And spring and seed and swallow

Take wing for her and follow

Where summer song rings hollow

And flowers are put to scorn.

_Algernon Charles Swinburne_

  
  


She had been half a girl when he stole her. They were all of them children in those days, living thousand-year lives in time with the turning of the earth, their childhoods stretching on for eons. She was young, and lithe, and ripe for the picking. She did not blame him, not really. She was beautiful, she was divine.

They lived among the stars, high on the mountain, the clouds lapping at their toes. They used the earth as their playground, but the underworld--the underworld was something else. She had wanted to visit, like most of her friends did; death was always a curiosity among the undying. But she knew her mother would never let her. She did not see the harm in a single visit, but Persephone knew her mother was wise to the ways of men, even immortal ones.

She found he watched her a lot, his fiery eyes cutting into her. They met at parties, or weddings, or any occasion the gods chose to celebrate. Always he was cloaked in shadow, his secrets his own, his eyes following her about the room.

It was all games in those days, before her fall. They were just children, her and the other half-divine--they frolicked and gamboled and indulged their every whim. They ate what they wanted, slept where they liked, took possession of anything that caught their eyes. They could afford to be lavish, to be selfish and rash. They picked flowers in the sunlight, their skin reflecting bronze and gold. Anemone with its red, red leaves, the colour of mortal blood, pretty in the grass. 

The abduction, then, ruined the peace. She supposed he must have long wanted her, had probably planned her abduction to the very letter. He was like that, or so she thought from what little she knew, rigid and neurotic. It came with the territory, she thought. And yet, to see him burst through the earth, rent it clump from clump, she could understand why they called him a God. His chariot gold and silver, platinum and diamond. It _sang._

The Oceanids she was with scattered, but Persephone was rooted to the spot, her hands full of hyacinth and narcissus blooms. She flinched at the sight of him. She had never really _seen_ him before, not the vicious, terrifying rawness of him. He was her uncle, but she didn’t know him; it was, after all, impossible to know death, though she had met him countless times. 

He was the quiet sort, and had never so much as spoken two words to her, but his gaze often lingered. 

His skin was black and red, split and leaking ichor. He shone in the meadow, there among the low grasses. He was something altogether different. This was power.

She had never wanted to be a queen, but that was what he called her as he hauled her by the thin wrist into his chariot. _My queen._ Everything had been open to her: as a divine child she could do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted to do it but now… She could only go with him, and despair. She cowered in the covered rear of his chariot, and let the horses lead them onwards. They were beautiful and deathless, and black as night.

The underworld was colder than she had expected. Persephone had expected glimmering lava, the furnace at the center of the earth, but the only fire emanated from _him_. 

It was a cavernous space. It was still and eerie. Everything seemed to be waiting for her, here beneath the permafrost. She shivered and let it happen, for what else could she do?

He left her in a cave, and he took the warmth with him. 

“Don’t think of leaving,” he hissed as he went. “Cerberus will have your head if you try.” 

She had dressed for flower-picking; her torn chiton hung tattered around her ankles. Everything was dark, and there were strange sounds coming from far away. She cried for her mother; she was only a _child._ She cut her palms on the ragged rocks. Her sandals had fallen off somewhere along the way. She was coming apart at the seams.

It seemed like hours. The earth must have carried on spinning as she sat near its core, time unfurling like buds. She supposed her mother must have been told of her kidnapping by now--surely rescue would come soon. Her father perhaps, righteously angry, flames in his eyes, or some other god. She closed her eyes and prayed to anyone willing to listen. It was a musical thing, almost a chant. _Save me, find me, save me._ Water dripped from somewhere, and the sound of it echoed.

Hours passed, a day at least. Still she cried, lying on the unforgiving floor, narcissus blooms going dry in her fist. He came to her in a whirl of flame, arching up against the black ceiling. He made an art of it, she had to admit.

“I heard your prayers.” His voice was like the roar of industry, the crackle of fire. She tried to hate him, she really did, but his voice was so sad that she had to pity him. 

He stepped towards her with great echoing footsteps. “Are you not pleased with your new abode? You are sitting in my throne room.” He gestured around to the cave at large. She couldn’t see a throne, but then it was very dark. He clapped his hands and made it light, made fire fly around the walls until she could see a chair on a dais. Was it made of gold? She longed to touch it. 

“Let me go, please.” She had not meant to beg. “My mother will be worried.”

“No doubt.” He dismissed the mention of his sister. “All mothers worry when their daughters marry, even mortals.”

“‘Marry’?” Her voice was high-pitched and it rebounded on the stony walls, repeating her outburst. “I will do no such thing!” She could not say where the bravery came from; it grew inside her like a hot flame in her belly, urging her on.

“Too late, dearest wife.” He bent down so that he could meet her eyes, and she wished he wouldn’t. His eyes were golden, even in the half-light. He had a terrible hunger in him.

“Please, uncle! You are not so evil as to marry me against my will.”

“Aren’t I? What do you know of me? What does anyone know? How else must I get a bride, if not by stealing her unawares?”

“You can’t keep me here. Someone will come!”

“No one will come.” His lips curled as he spat it. “No one ever comes.” And he left her there, sobbing into the stone.

  
  


It was days before she moved. It must have been days. She stood up on shaking legs and drew in a breath of icy air. It hurt her lungs, as used to warmth as they were. She looked around at his throne room. She wondered what flowers grew down here, what strange fruits he had learned to cultivate. She stretched and looked up at the impossibly high roof. Who had carved these caverns? Or had he used his magics to tear the earth asunder?

She found him by the river Styx. He was leaning over the edge, red fingers curling into the water like a child’s He was open and calm and humane. Looking at him, she did not think he could be so cruel.

“Isn’t it terrible when somebody sneaks up on you and catches you unawares?” But she smiled at him. She always tried to be kind. 

“Wife,” he addressed her, with a scowl. "You did not catch me unawares. I heard your heartbeat half a league away."

As a God, she knew his hearing was enhanced: he could probably smell the anticipation, the sweat that stuck her dress to the back of her neck. Every one of his senses was more heightened than the mortals’. 

He had a beautiful face, really, dark and etched with fire beneath his dark skin, the ichor leaking hot. She found herself drawn to it. She wanted so badly to believe he was good. If she was trapped here, she might as well make conversation.

“Husband.” She tried the word on for size. It felt foreign in her mouth, which she supposed was normal. “Are you going to let me go yet? They’re probably furious by now. It won’t do you any good--you already have quite a reputation.”

“What do you know of my reputation?”

“Only what everyone knows. That you’re cruel and sick and that you enjoy being around the souls of the dead.” She tried to remember her manners, and her kindness, but it was slipping away, drying up like the flowers she had held. 

He raised his hand out from the water and she jumped backwards.

“I will not have you speak to me in such a manner,” he hissed. “You are my _wife._ ”

"Wife? I won't marry you."

"The chariot was our ceremony, the bones of the buried were our witnesses. You're my wife." 

She began to cry. She was not very good at being brave. “I’m not, and I never will be.” She thought of her father, how angry he’d be. “My father will have you tossed in Tartarus for this.” She thought that would be a fitting end for him.

“Your ‘father’?” He laughed at her, a horrid barking sound. “He doesn’t care about you. Who do you think gave you away?”

Surely not? He had to be lying, he was wicked enough for it. “No,” was all that she could manage.

“Yes.”

“He wouldn’t…” But the thoughts crept in. Zeus was all-powerful--if he meant for Persephone to marry, then that was what she must do.

“He most definitely would.”

She felt nauseous, and the room was spinning. There were lights lining the river and they blurred in her eyes. Was that why no one had come to rescue her yet? Because her father had forbidden them? 

“Why would he do that?” She was aghast, she was shocked, she was marooned here without a friend in sight.

Her husband, for she must call him what he was, leaned back over the water. She wondered what he was seeing in there, if she too could crouch down and divine something from the black depths.

“He is a difficult man, Zeus,” he said. “I have long fought with him. But we are cut from the same cloth. Still, I cannot say why he does what he does; none can.”

She knew Zeus had fathered many children, the divine and the half-breeds. She did not much think of the others as her kin. But Zeus… he was her father. She had thought he would never let harm come to her, yet here she was, chained to the god of Death. Her mother must be furious.

He took a step towards her. He actually looked contrite. He sighed. “I know this is difficult for you. I’ll give you space.”

That was kind of him--she hadn’t considered that he was capable of such things. Still, she shuddered under his fiery gaze.

Her voice was echoey in the great chamber. “Did my father really give you permission to abduct me?”

“‘Abduct’? I don’t like that word. I married you. And yes, he gave me permission.”

The only sound was the waters of the Styx trickling on. It was almost delicate, for a river named ‘hatred’.

“My mother will rescue me.” She sounded petulant, like the child she was.

He raised a controlled eyebrow. “I wouldn’t be so sure. I know my sister-”

“I know my _mother._ She will come. Or she will send someone. But she will never let you keep me.”

“Dearest,” he hummed, though he was not really paying her any attention, his focus had shifted back to the river that ran between them. “You are already mine.”

She stood up tall, though she was still a head and shoulders shorter than him. She still had a bit of growing to do, but she straightened her spine and tried to look confident. She hadn’t yet come into all her godly heritage, but there was a certain quality in her bones. A _fire._

“I will never be yours.” She spat the words at him. He could marry her against her will all he liked, but she would never give in to him. She wondered if he would take her by force. She did not want to find out. She drew her cloak around her shoulders and made sure to turn away from him before letting her hot tears fall.

  
  
  


For newlyweds, they certainly avoided one another. He seemed content to give her space. She did not see him for two days, and in that time she learned the pathways of the caverns, the twists and turns, the deadends and the obscure places. She walked back and forth for hours at a time, commiting the place to memory. If this was to be her new home she would not be afraid of it.

There was a part of her that was resigned to staying here. She could not much help it. She believed with all her heart that her mother would come for her, but in the meantime she needed to be brave. She needed to remain unbroken, unbothered by the grim reality of her current situation. She need not be a victim.

The caverns were endless, or so they seemed to be. They were all of them dark and foreboding; there was no comfort to be found in this place. There were odd passages she could not figure out, which she supposed was due to the magics upon the place. There was always the sound of the souls screaming along the Cocytus, begging for a mercy that would not come. They only wanted to go home, and in that they were united.

She met with Charon, the ferrryman. His river was at the outermost edge of her new domain; she could not step one foot further. He was tall and thin, skeletal almost, with a great mass of knotted hair, and a beard that stretched halfway down his front. He was glum and dedicated. He was a simple creature, and she felt something of a kinship with him--they were both of them here to serve a purpose. They were both of them ornaments.

Cerberus too. His great body took up her entire field of vision--he was a large hulking mass, covered with matted black fur. He too was there to serve a purpose: he guarded the realms of death, and prevented any desperate souls from trying to leave. He was a frightful beast, but he seemed sweet to her, as though he had been told not to make things difficult for her. Still she knew; he would not let her leave. She was as much a prisoner here as the souls, that much was clear.

Her chambers were her own. She had a great four-poster bed, and a gold gilded vanity in front of which she combed her long red hair, and stared into her own eyes. They were growing darker by the day. Life, of which she had been such a joyous participant, was being drained from her. Her soul was being eaten up. It was hard to fight against it, the imprisonment was sapping at her will.

She spent a lot of time without him, then, but he was often present, as only a god could be, seeping into the bones of the place. His flames were everywhere, his voice booming off the jagged walls, his warmth filling every chamber, waxing and waning as he moved about. He was as much a part of that place as the Elm of False Dreams, as Charon and the three headed dog, as the eternally-locked gates of Tartarus.

He came to her on the third evening. He was not a welcome sight, and she wondered what he wanted. She was afraid to see him, but he held himself some distance from her, for which she was grateful. Even so, she felt her skin burning. It was centered around her chest, around the hole where her heart used to be. It was hard not to want to creep closer to his warmth; everything else was so damned cold.

“I am going to show you around. Please, come with me.”

‘Please’? It was easy to forget that he had kidnapped her.

He offered her his divine hand and she took it, felt the warmth seeping into her own pale skin, felt the burn of it creep up her wrist. He was glowing, or so it seemed to her.

He led her from her chamber and through endless corridors. The doors in the underworld were heavy and took great effort to shift. She was patient as he guided her this way and that, until they came to a great underground plain, a place filled with meadows and sweet-smelling grass. She had not known such life could exist here. It was beautiful. It reminded her of home.

“Welcome to the Elysian Fields.” He breathed it like a prayer, and she supposed it was to him. “Where dwell the chosen ones.”

She drew in a sudden breath. “It’s glorious,” she said, because it was, truly, something to behold. The grasses bent with a gentle breeze. The smell of asphodel reached them from the meadows beyond. There were people in the distance, just going about their day, each day of their afterlife as monotone as the one before. They bore the telltale foggy bodies of the deceased, some half-translucent, some almost fading into nothing. 

“This is the only flowering plain in all my domain,” he said. “I want you to visit here whenever you feel lost, or sad. I want you to know that there is a place for you here, my goddess of spring. You are a queen now; this is your kingdom. These souls are yours to preside over, to care for. You have sway over their fates, never forget that."

She did not know what to say and so she said nothing. 

“There are fruits here too,” he said, and pointed to a nearby tree, “Pomegranate and peach. You may eat from any of the trees. They are yours alone.”

Everyone knew the rules of the underworld; he could not trick her that easily, like some fuzzy-headed mortal. The fruit looked luscious, true, but even one bite could tie her to his realm forever. The smallest pip, the tiniest morsel of bright pink flesh, and she would be doomed and damned. She knew of his tricks. She turned to him and feigned pleasantries.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” she said.

“Is it not enough to think that I am nice? Need I have a reason to be civil to my wife?”

There was that word again. She hated it, and moreover she hated that it was growing on her. For all her life she had only been _kore_ , maiden, child of Zeus, but here? She could be Queen, but it came at such a cost. 

He took her hand again and ran his fingers over her knuckles. Gooseflesh rose up on the back of her neck, and she shivered. He was hot to the touch; she felt that godly fire that lived beneath his skin. 

“Don't call me that,” she protested in a faint breathy whisper.

He shrugged her off, obstinate, and continued on their tour. He showed her Lethe and Phlegethon, sleep and fire. He took her to the shores of Oceanus, that circled all within, at the very edge of his domain. He showed her his favored souls, his pets and his enemies. He showed her the judges’ room, where the recently dead souls were sorted good from bad. Here she frowned.

She thought of what he had told her about her duty. 

“Who are we to judge the mortals?” she asked. “For all eternity at that?” She had not given much thought to it before, in the long summer of her childhood, but now these questions muddled her mind. 

He drew in a deep breath. “We are the divine,” he said at length. “We are the children of the cosmos. We are of the stars, my dear. It is a tragedy as much as it is a blessing.”

She did not know what to say to that. He seemed humble. There was something different about the way he held himself.

“And that divinity gives us the right?”

He nodded. “There comes a time when we have to choose, Kore. We all of us have a choice to make, as we grow into our powers. So too will you have to choose. We are eternal, there is no denying that. What will you do with your almighty heritage? What will you do with your life? _That_ gives us the right; that choice we make. We are ageless, deathless gods.”

It seemed to her that it was the randomness of birth that granted them those rights. She had been nothing but lucky, that was all. She could just as easily have been a mortal maiden, made for several short decades of life. She could just as easily have lived her life without an abducting uncle, and then she would never have known any of this. She found herself thinking: what choice do I have here?

“If we must make a choice, why did you make mine for me?”

“You still have a choice yet, dearest.”

“What choice?”

“It will come to you, perhaps when you least expect it.”

She thought of home. She thought of the meadows and the flowers and her mother presiding over it all. She wanted so badly to go back there, that all the hurt inside bubbled up and she was crying before she knew it. “Please let me go.”

He shook his head. “I wish you would stop asking.”

“What will you say to my mother when she saves me?”

“I’ll ask her for my bride back. She won’t refuse me.”

Persephone wanted to insist _she will,_ but she was growing less and less certain with every agonising day that passed. Was this his plan? Wear her down until she accepted her fate? Where was the choice in that?

She turned away from him, face wet with salt, and as she turned her foot caught on a loose rock and she fell, slipped, knee-first onto the jagged ground. Her knees stung. She looked and there was blood, ichor leaking silvery and bright onto the black stone. 

“Silly girl,” he said, and hoisted her up. He sat her down on a nearby outcrop and examined her injuries. He wrapped his hands around her knees, leaning in close, and her breath caught. Just a little, almost imperceptible, but he must have noticed. His fingers enclosed her thigh and she couldn’t breathe, was gasping even as she tried to hide it. He frowned. “It doesn't look bad. You shouldn’t get a scar,” he said, knowing full well that scars upon the divine were rare indeed.

He ripped a segment of his cloak off and used it to dab at the ichor. She hissed. He looked up and met her eyes, and he smiled. It was a faltering thing. She thought that perhaps he didn’t smile very often; he was probably out of practise. His golden eyes swam when he smiled.

She swallowed with a gulp. She pulled her leg out of his hands, going red about the face. She was not very goddess-like. She stood up on sore legs.

“Yes,” she said, fully aware of how flustered she sounded but unable to control herself. “Thank you for that.” She wasn’t sure what she was saying. He was looking at her with that damned half-broken look, like a bird caught in a cage. He was beautiful, she could admit that now. He was her husband after all, and he was beautiful. Didn't wives admire their husbands? 

He grabbed her hand and pressed it to his lips, and she swayed where she stood. The tenderness in it took her by surprise. What was he doing? This wasn’t a love affair. She yanked her hand away, scandalised.

“That’s enough,” she hissed, and turned away. She followed the rivers back to her chambers, and still she burned.

  
  
  


News from above reached them on the fifth day. She was sipping golden nectar from a ruby-encrusted chalice in his grande hall. He had many such fineries, goblets and dishes, things going rusty in the damp subterranean air. 

They sat at either end of a long, long table, each pretending the other didn’t exist. Every now and then he would break their truce and look at her, and it ruined her to exist under his gaze. She squirmed in her seat. She felt foolish and hot, and it angered her that he had such power. But then he would look away and she would be free again. 

She was thinking of his reputation. Everyone knew you had to have gall to work with the dead. She had come to learn that about him--he was stoic and unmovable as the earth, but he had a heart underneath all that. You had to care, to do his job. He surrounded himself with death but it was the living he craved, she could tell. There was something in his eyes, something aching.

A messenger brought the news. He bent low over the table, the two of them talking in hushed tones. Persephone could not hear them, was forgotten entirely. When they finished, the messenger bowed his way out the hall, and her husband cleared his throat.

“Your mother has gone insane,” he said. 

Persephone gasped. “Of course she has!” What else did he expect?

He scanned the written note again. “She hasn’t eaten or drank. She hasn’t rested. She’s neglected the earth--nothing’s growing. She forbids it!”

“I said as much would happen.”

“You did. I thought perhaps a few days, with Zeus to tell her of our agreement… but it does not seem she is willing to give up.”

Persephone scoffed. Demeter, child of Titans, turner of the earth, give up? “Never.” She let her voice carry.

He looked at her, looked right through her. “She isn’t going to let you go, is she?”

“No. She will do whatever it takes.” She thought of the land above, going brown and ruined in her absence. She thought of the endless flower meadows drying up, of the crops rotting in the ground, of the people up in arms--and all for the sake of her. Was it worth it? She wasn’t exactly in danger here… In fact, the only injuries she had sustained had been her own doing. He was treating her quite well, abduction notwithstanding. She was growing almost comfortable, if she thought really hard on it. 

She slammed her chalice down, nectar sloshing over the sides, covering her hand in sticky residue. She would not let him wear her down. She was going home, she was sure of it. Five days in hell was long enough. She would feel the sun on her face again, and the clover beneath her feet. She could _breathe._

“You had better accept it,” she warned him. “I will be home soon enough.”

He looked at her, really looked at her. He smoldered. He looked right into her soul, that pitiful little thing at the hollow of her that cried out for rescue. He saw how unhappy she was, how much she craved for home. He sighed. 

“You are my _wife_ ,” he said, as though she could forget. “You are promised to me, and me alone. Do you understand what that means? There will be no rescue here. You are destined for the marriage bed, nothing more.”

She gasped. She had been counting herself lucky that he had made no mention of the bedding before now. She had tried to put that from her mind. She had thought he had forgotten, that perhaps such things were beyond him. She had hoped… Persephone shivered under his gaze.

“Do you pride yourself on being cruel?” she said through her tears. “Do you pride yourself on acting precisely as the others say you do?”

“I don’t care!” He stood up to his full height, eight godly feet and more. “I don’t want to hear about Zeus or Demeter or any of them. They are not our concern, do you understand? Forget them. We are here alone! This is your life now; accept it.”

“What is my life? These moldy halls, your worm-eaten table, the stink of damp everywhere I turn? What life is that? How could you possibly think I would _like_ this?”

“You are my wife!” He seemed to think this would cow her, and she flinched now at the anger in his voice. He looked shocked at his outburst, and drew in a long breath. He walked around the table to where she was sitting. “I thought we were getting along just fine?” His voice was haggard, long-suffering.

She hesitated. “We were,” she said, barely above a whisper. He had to lean in to hear her.

“But…” she started. “You can’t kidnap a girl and expect her to lov-” she caught herself. “ _Like_ you.”

He stared down at her. She could see the golden freckles in his black skin. He had a smattering of them over his nose--how curious, she thought, to see a god with flaws. He could get rid of them if he liked, she knew, but he must have chosen them.

She sighed. “You can’t honestly expect me to care for you? Do you honestly care for me?”

He seethed. She knew he had long desired her, had watched him watching her at plenty of gatherings, his eyes hot on her skin. She knew the ways of men, she knew what things they wished upon her. She had long known of his wants. He must have delighted, she thought, when her father agreed to the marriage. But life was about more than desire, of that she was certain.

Then he said something that broke her heart, a thing that tore at her insides like a sickness. It was barely a whisper. “I think I do.” At least he had the decency to look ashamed.

“You… what-”

“I’m just saying," he tried to cover, "It’s been nice to have someone… _here._ ”

“So get a pet--hell, you already have a three-headed dog!” She stood up, matching his fury. Anger did not come easy to her, but she found it now in the pit of her stomach. 

There were tears in his eyes. How lonely must he be?

She moved away from him, away from those damnable sorry eyes. “You can’t just kidnap someone and expect them to be happy about it.” Her words were livid. “I’m a _victim,_ not a bride.”

He made to speak, then shut his mouth like a clamp. His white, white teeth snapped together. His lips were pale against the black shiny skin of his face. “We’re Olympians. This is how marriages are made. Don’t tell me you aren’t aware of your father’s exploits?”

She was all too aware. Gossip on the ground made him notorious; her father was a firm favourite among the mortals. She looked at him, properly looked at him, his curling hair and his wrecked face, stained with ichor, pockmarked with age and experience. He was hunched even now to meet her eyes. He looked like something pitiful. She felt an overwhelming wave of despair.

“It’s only been five days,” she said at last, in a careful voice. “Just… give me time. Five measly turns of the Earth since you brought me here, _uncle_. Even for the mortals, that is nothing. Maybe in a century I’ll feel different, maybe not.” She wasn’t agreeing to anything, not yet--not while there was still hope that her mother would save her. She had to believe her mother would save her. If she gave up, she might as well become one of the soulless dead, doomed to haunt a cave for all time. 

She wasn’t giving up just yet, but she was done feeling sorry for herself.

She wondered if this was what he meant when he said she had a choice.

  
  
  


She awoke with the dawn reaping of souls. At least, she assumed it was dawn. It felt like dawn, in her body. She missed the sun, the aurora, the birds and the _people._ Everyone here was dead or worse, gone mad with the torment.

She put on a new dress that her husband had made for her, from cloth-of-gold and crimson silk. It came down to just below her knees, which true to his words had healed perfectly. She brushed her red hair in the mirror. It stuck up in odd places owing to the humidity, and would not sit nicely no matter what she tried. Still, she supposed, there was no one around who would care.

She found him near the entrance to his realm, sat beneath the great Elm. He was seated in the bower, back rigid against the trunk. He was looking up and up, into the jagged leaves. On the underside of each one clung a single silvery dream, the Oneiroi. He seemed at peace in a way that she had never seen him before. He was always so jittery, so alive like the fire beneath his skin, but now he was still, composed. 

It was almost a shame to disturb him. 

He may have heightened senses, but so did she. Persephone felt him watching, felt it itch up her spine like a spider. His eyes were on her slender ankles, pale against the dark rocky ground. He coveted her, she knew, now more than ever. There was no mistaking. To know it should have frightened her, but she found it was not an unpleasant feeling.

“Wife,” he said.

“Husband,” she returned. It was not so difficult a word to say now; she could not say why.

He smiled at her in a knowing manner and returned to staring at the leaves. They sat in an uneasy silence for some time.

“You know, I have driven many a mortal insane with these false dreams.” he said, at length.

“I’m sure you have.” As she was watching, one of the gossamer bubbles worked its way free and floated angel-like down to the rock beneath. It was absorbed into the porous floor, leaving a thin film that reflected the torch light like sunlight caught in a crystal.

She knew they were deadly to touch for anyone but him. They could sap her wits from her, make her a desperate shell. They held such magnificent power.

He beckoned her closer. She moved so that she was standing beneath the arms of the tree, and he pointed upwards. She tilted her neck. From this angle, the Oneiroi looked like stars. She gasped, and was half-deceived. It was quite realistic. 

“They’re beautiful,” she breathed, and they were. She had not expected to see such beauty in such a… gloomy place.

He stood up beside her, and jostled her shoulders. He was warm, as ever. As one of the dreams fell, he caught it on his outstretched finger. It wobbled there, a luminous little thing.

“Make a wish,” he said, and Persephone wished for _home._ She wished for budding flowers and buzzing bees, wet grass and olive groves, her mother and her friends. She wished none of this had ever happened. She wished for the hurt in her chest to heal. She wished to stand under the hot sun and be washed clean.

She was suddenly, bodily, aware of how close she was standing to him. She could see those freckles again, could count the hairs that lined his upper lip, could trace the soft curve of his ear if she wanted. He was a handsome man, of that she had no doubt. His divinity thrummed beneath his skin like molten gold.

He leaned down and, as though it were nothing at all, pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. He felt like fire made flesh, like something unknowable. Her lips burned, and she licked them on impulse.

“I’m sorry-” he started, but she raised her hand.

“We’re married, aren’t we?” She stood on her toes and kissed him again, kissed him good and proper, a thorough kiss, there in the shadow of dreams. She kissed him and meant it. She kissed him until she was dizzy. She supposed one always got dizzy when you kissed a god; there was something about how intoxicating it was. They were both divine, and wine did not have the effect on them that it did mortals, but it felt like that, like wine and opium dreams.

They broke apart and she gasped for breath. She was quite undone. He looked down at her through his infinite lashes, and he gave her another of those rare unpolished smiles.

“Am I your queen?” she said, as he pressed his lips to the pulsepoint on her neck.

He whispered his reply into her collarbone, then leaned back and looked into her eyes. His gaze was burning, a pleasant sensation in her stomach. 

“Yes,” he said, “My Queen. Queen of all you see.” He kissed her earlobe. “ _Per-seph-one_ ,” he murmured, and she couldn’t fight the grin that burst forth. He worked his way up, across her jaw, and back to her smiling lips.

“Say it again. Call me ‘queen’ again.”

“My queen,” he breathed, as he pushed her back against the trunk of the dream tree. The knots in the wood stuck in her back and she winced a little, before he pressed down on her and it all ceased to matter.

  
  
  


On the seventh day, Helios found them. He arrived in a flurry of burning sunlight, ultraviolet radiation that boiled anything it touched. Helios was always one for an entrance. Persephone sat on the steps to the great palace and watched him come, watched the way he settled into a form more _mortal_ with every thundering step, until eventually he was perhaps nine feet tall, all tanned skin and consuming eyes. His hair was gold and bouncy, and he wore a shiny white himation. She raised a hand in greeting.

“Kore,” he said, somewhat breathless, which was an odd choice to make. As a god, he had no need to appear breathless, he could just magic it away, but he didn’t. He chose to suffer the ungainliness of it. “I have searched the realms of mortal and divine both--for you. Your mother is beside herself. The very earth itself suffers in your absence.”

She nodded lazily. “I have heard the news. Are you here to rescue me?” She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted rescuing, anymore. She was beginning to enjoy the way her lips ached after she kissed him. It was a marvelous thing, a kind of worship.

“I’m only here to find you,” Helios continued, “I will report back to your lady mother. She will likely go to Zeus, and petition him to return you.” Like she was some property misplaced, something stolen rather than some _one_ loved. Persephone rankled at that.

“Tell my mother I’m fine. As you can well see, I am uninjured.”

Helios stepped closer. He dropped his voice. “But has he hurt you in _other_ ways?”

“He has not laid a finger on me,” which was not, strictly, true. She understood his concern: she was not the first woman whisked away by a man for nefarious means. No, she thought, he has been quite the gentleman, kidnapping aside. What could she say, “the man who made me a child bride claims he loves me”?

“Tell my mother I’m fine,” she said again, for emphasis.

Helios stalled. “Kore, have you eaten aught but nectar since your arrival?”

“No, why?” He had offered her more fruit since which she had swiftly declined. He seemed desperate to tie her to him--he seemed to know her rescue would come. 

Helios sighed. “Don’t. Whatever strange fruits he may offer you, refuse them all.”

“What will happen if I eat?”

“If you eat, you are trapped.”

“Forever?” It seemed awfully unfair, that one bite could sentence her to eternity. She wondered what the mechanics of such a sentence were.

“Yes. The fruits of the dead are cursed things.”

“I see.” She nodded sagely. 

“I will report back to your lady mother. Have you a message for her?”

“Just… tell her not to worry. I’m _fine._ ”

Helios looked doubtful. She heard her husband’s footsteps approaching and Helios promptly dissolved himself into a bundle of pure energy and was gone from the place. Her husband turned up his nose. He looked outraged.

“Who is calling upon my realm without my permission?”

“Only the Sun. He seeks me. He is telling my mother what you’ve done to me.”

He sat beside her, she would think it almost companionable if she were anything but a prisoner. His cloaked knees knocked her bare ones. 

“What I’ve done to you?” he said. “I haven’t done anything to you.” He looked almost innocent; she could almost believe him.

“I told him you ravished me,” she lied, just to see the look on his face.

His dark features knitted together furiously. 

She wouldn’t be opposed to a bit of light ravishing, she decided.

“Anyway,” she cut through his mood. “He will tell my mother where I am. So, this tryst is over. It’s time to hand me back.” She _hated_ that the most in all of this: that she was a possession to be passed around from mother to husband and back again. Was she not a goddess in her own right? 

His jaw worked wordlessly for some time before he managed to gain control. “I suppose you'll get what you wanted. You only had--what?--a week in hell. Was it really that bad?”

She considered for a moment. It was not _all_ bad. There was something to be said about being his wife. On earth she had no prospects beyond picking flowers, though there was nothing wrong with that life--but here she was a _queen_ . She could scarcely dream of such power. And the rocky atmosphere of the place was growing on her, if she was honest. The damp had stopped bothering her and she’d even walked around barefoot once or twice. The palace itself was simply _divine_.

“It has not been all bad.” She settled on that. “In fact, some of it was… pleasant.” She caught his eye and tried to make him smile.

“‘Pleasant’? That’s promising,” he said. “I can work with ‘pleasant’.”

She thought of the fruit, ripe and ready. She thought of being tied to him for all her days to come. She thought of life and death, and the crisp way flowers fought their way up from the earth every spring. She recalled how frightened she’d been when he stole her, how she had cried for hours on end, her throat cracked raw. She was not that scared young girl anymore. She felt different in the pit of her stomach.

She leaned forward and kissed the cleft in his chin.

“Husband,” she said, “Take me to bed.”

  
  
  


On the eighth day, she ate of the tree. The air was cold, as ever, and the fruit was covered in a thin layer of dew. She cut open the pomegranate and let its flesh spill out. She pressed it to her lips and quite deliberately ate--there was no denying it was a deliberate act. She knew what it meant and she ate anyway. She had made her choice. She swallowed several mouthfuls of the fruit. It tasted of death.

He found her at it, and his eyes lit up. She felt him before she saw him, his heat encroaching into the hollow chasm. He took up almost the whole chamber, and his footsteps were thunderous as he approached her. He was unable to hide the greed that poured forth, but then he schooled his features, tempered himself. He actually seemed worried for her.

“My lady,” he started, “Have you not been warned? Did Helios not tell you-”

“He told me. And I already knew. I’m doing it anyway. My mother will be _furious_. They’ll try to make out that you forced me to do it, but don’t worry, I’ll be clear.” She felt rebellious, her blood thrumming through her veins. The feeling sat odd in her stomach.

“I thought you longed for rescue?”

“I do.”

“So why…?”

She couldn’t honestly say why. She continued chewing for several drawn-out moments. He watched her jaw work.

“Have you changed your mind?”

She shrugged. “My mother will be furious…” 

“Persephone!” He grabbed her hands. “What have you done?”

“Don’t act so concerned. I know you want me to stay here. Try and tell me I’m not the best thing that ever happened to you.”

He shook his head but his eyes were predatory. He wanted her, still and always. There was no use in denying it; it was written all over his face. His dismay was cursory, a hollow gesture. He was not concerned for her, not truly; from the minute he had pulled her into his chariot, he had wanted this.

“So you have chosen,” he said. He actually had the gall to look _sad_.

In the end, she only ate a third of the pomegranate. It was tough going. It wasn’t quite ripe, probably due to the lack of sun, but then she had not expected it to be so. Persephone herself had grown pale and pasty; it felt like years had passed. She was withering here, like so many of the other souls. They were all of them damned to dust and damp.

“I hope you know,” she said conversationally, “there’ll be some changes around here, now I’m queen. Decorative changes mostly.” She did not know how much bare rock she could stand. “Assuming my mother doesn’t demand I stay with her, of course.” Persephone was unsure how likely that was; her mother could be _very_ persuasive. It was the Titan blood. It gave all of them a burning heart of courage, red hot confidence deep in their chests, a certainty leftover from the supernovae in which they had once lived.

Persephone thought of her mother, putting the entire earth on pause. It was no wonder she was star-born, with a fury like that. 

She wondered: was it love, or possession?

  
  
  


On the ninth day her mother was, as predicted, furious. Persephone was summoned soon after waking: Zeus wanted to see them both on Olympus. He granted her permission to leave. She brushed her hair in front of the mirror for what could be the last time. She took in the stony architecture, the fungi growing in random corners, the smell of grease and damp. She said goodbye to Charon, and Cerberus, and took one last look at the Elm of False Dreams. She trod barefoot on the jagged ground, her toes spaying onto the rock. It felt good, she could recognise that now. It felt familiar.

They met by the metal gates, ready to travel to Olympus. It would take seconds only, just one deep breath and they’d be there. They would appear in a gust of wind, a necessary spectacle. Persephone readied herself for the anger, the confusion, readied herself for the sight of her mother, destroyed and grieving. She readied herself to see Zeus, who had sold her off to his brother like cattle to be traded. What did he get in return, she wondered? What favour was he trying to curry?

“Are you ready?” He offered her his hand. She couldn’t think why. He did not seem to be one for sentimentalities. 

“Remember,” she urged. “I made my choice. Whatever they say--I made my choice.”

He looked into her eyes. “You never had a choice. I took that away from you.” He looked wrecked, like a penitent man, his face awash with guilt. He seemed _old,_ in a way no ageless being had any right to look. He looked mortal, worried for his soul, a man about to face certain death. 

Persephone couldn’t bear to look at him. She studied the ground, the worn leather of her sandals. She counted her breaths, slow and steady. Eventually:

“Why didn’t you just ask?” she said, in a small voice.

“Because you’d have said ‘no’.”

“Would I?” 

They’d never know.


End file.
